Album Notes

Sometimes it seems without a niche, you're nothing.

Has pop music become so fragmented that you as a listener have to choose between smart lyrics and a good groove, between a beat and a melody, between humor and soul? Will Provost has released a record that proves otherwise.

My Former Self lays just claim to all of these, plus a quality of arrangement and production as good as anything you'll find on an indie label.

Will's music has evolved over years of writing and performing everything from folk and rock to jazz and funk.

Think of this record as a well-seasoned stew, a gumbo, a bouillabaisse.

It's been over the heat for a good while, and now that it's ready to serve there are all these wonderful flavors emerging, and the whole has become much more than the sum of the parts.

The ingredients here are more in the way of clever writing, tasty guitar hooks, beautiful singing, of stirring rhythms and an awareness of musical styles and their evocations, but the cooking is not so different.

Nor, happily, is the result.